Patients in hospitals, convalescent homes, and the like, sometimes fall from beds or chairs, and unless properly attended, may suffer additional harm or injury. Particularly in the case of elderly patients, it has been found that falling or possibly climbing from hospital beds, even with raised side rails, is not an uncommon occurrence. Aside from intensive care situations, hospital and convalescent care patients are not normally under constant surveillance and thus could be injured and lie on the floor, for example, for a considerable period of time without assistance.
It is conventional in hospitals and convalescent homes to provide a nurse call button and a speaker adjacent the hospital bed so that the patient may operate the call button to signal a nursing station that assistance is required. Conventionally, a communication panel is provided in a wall adjacent each hospital bed with a loud speaker at the panel, so that a patient may communicate with a central station as required. Normally, the nurse call unit is plugged into this panel and a cord extends from the plug to a call button unit that may be clipped to a pillow or the sheets of the bed. Such a nurse call system normally includes not only a circuit that can be closed by actuating the call button, but also a normally closed circuit that is opened at any time the unit becomes unplugged from the panel. Either button actuation or unplugging of the unit will operate a light and/or audio-alarm at some central station. Although these prior art systems are quite advantageous and are widely employed, it is known that they do not solve the problem of a patient that may fall from a bed, inasmuch as the call button would not normally then be in a position to be actuated by such a patient.
The present invention provides an improvement in patient care in hospitals or the like, by adding to the nurse call system normally employed in hospitals. The present invention positively identifies at a central station the presence or absence of a patient in a bed or chair without requiring additional wiring or the like to individual rooms.